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Savanna is now over a month old, which also means my Chinese postpartum care period is over. During the past month, I’ve consumed over 80 litres of Chinese rice wine, and countless cups of herbal medicine, and 30 straight days of fermented rice breakfast. Boy, am I glad it’s over!

However, the end of the postpartum care also means my mom is going back to Taiwan. In fact, she’s leaving on her flight in a few hours. That part really sucks for me. It’s weird how I’m already 36, and yet whenever my mom leaves town, I feel like I’m 5 again crying my eyes out because mommy is leaving. Nobody else in the world puts up with me like my mom does (ok, maybe Cliff does).

My mom has cooked almost all of our meals in the last month, so that I can focus on taking care of Savanna. She also spent countless hours holding Savanna so that I can go take a shower, or go to the bathroom, or take a nap, or spend time with Joshua, etc. Joshua totally adores my mom, and would spend hours playing with her or goofing around with her. I have no idea how I would have survived the last month without her. My grandma recently broke her hip, so my mom has to go back and help take care of my grandma. That means we have no idea when we’ll see my mom again.

When I had Joshua almost two years ago, my mom came all the way from Taiwan to provide me with the Chinese postpartum care treatment. It was the first time I had to eat up all sorts very nasty tasting herbs and soups for the sake of taking care of my body after having a baby.

Did I really benefit from it? I am not sure if I can tell. But, I guess it’s better for me to believe in the system than to totally ignore thousands of years of wisdom and tradition. So I asked my mom to come here again to help me out this time with the birth of Savanna.

The basic idea of the Chinese postpartum care is that you need to take very good care of your body for 30 days after giving birth, and it’s supposed to help build the foundation of a healthy life after having your baby.

In order to achieve the objective of taking care of your body, you’re supposed to:

1. Not wash your hair or shower for 30 days.

2. Not leave the house for 30 days.

3. Not lift anything heavy, or read the newspaper, or watch TV, or use your computer, or read books for 30 days.

4. Be in a very good mood, get lots of sleep, and have others help take care of you and your baby.

There are purposes to all the things you are supposed to do. The basic idea is that you cannot afford to get sick with a cold or flu, you must rest as much as possible, and you must eat all the herbal soups and brews to rid the toxins in your body and put in proper nutrients.

So am I going to follow all the principals? Uh, NO! If I can’t shower or wash my hair for 30 days, I may as well be dead now. Anyway, the only one principal I’m sticking to is the last one: the herbal soups and brews.

To make all the soups and brews, we need a HUGE amount of Chinese rice wine. The rice wine is a base for all the liquids I have to drink in the next 30 days, including soups and teas. Rice wine is easy to come by when you’re in Asia, but here in Canada all the rice wine has been salted due to government regulations and you can’t use that for the herbal soups. It’s not easy to find unsalted rice wine. Essentially, we had to buy it underground.

Once we got the rice wine, we have to cook it and reduce it down by 50%, which is referred to as the “rice wine water”. The rice wine water is then used to cook all my herbal soups and teas. We bought a bunch of gallon glass jars to store the rice wine water, and my apartment smells like alcohol!

In the next 30 days, I’m going to be eating up 80 litres of rice wine. That’s right, people, EIGHTY LITRES. I am going to be drunk the next 30 years!

Kidding.

When you cook the rice wine to reduce it to “rice wine water”, most of the alcohol has evaporated. When you further cook the soups and teas, it reduces the alcohol even more, so there’s barely any left by the time I ingest it.

That jar of white stuff on the far right is fermented rice in rice wine. I’m supposed to eat that as dessert.

Are you jealous of my life yet? Are you? Are you?

I bought the Chinese herbs when we were in Taiwan last time. They were already packaged for each type of soup or tea. All I have to do is soak the packages in the rice wine water, cook/brew the soup or tea, and eat it up. It is the modern convenience of a traditional torture.

Here’s a picture of one of the packages of herbal soups soaking in the rice wine water. This is THE WORST tasting one. I can’t even describe how bad it is. It’s all sorts of bitter and nasty tasting herbs combined. I made some tonight in preparation for the next week. I offered some to Cliff just so he can have a taste of what I have to go through. After one sip, he said he really appreciate all the hard work I have to go through and sacrifices I have to make to have our baby and he’s going to work his butt off for the rest of his life to treat me like a queen.

So there you have it. That’s what I’ve been busy with for the past couple of days. Cooking down rice wine to rice wine water, and making nasty tasting herbal soups. If you come visit, I’d totally offer you some too.